On February 18, 1944, 18 de Havilland Mosquito bombers of the RAF's 2nd Tactical Air Force swept in at rooftop level over the city of Amiens, France. Their target was the city's prison, where over 700 prisoners—including many French Resistance fighters—were held, with some 120 reportedly facing imminent execution.
The plan required extraordinary precision. The first wave had to breach the outer walls without destroying the prison buildings. A second wave would bomb the guard quarters. If the first two waves failed, a third was to destroy the entire prison to prevent the Gestapo from recovering their prisoners.
The bombing was remarkably accurate—the outer walls were breached in multiple places. In the chaos that followed, approximately 258 prisoners escaped, including many resistance members. However, 102 prisoners were killed by the bombing itself, a tragic but perhaps unavoidable cost of the operation.
Group Captain Percy "Pick" Pickard, the mission leader and one of the RAF's most decorated officers, was shot down and killed on the return flight, along with his navigator, Flight Lieutenant Alan Broadley.
The "true" purpose of Operation Jericho has been debated ever since. Some historians argue the execution story was exaggerated and that the real purpose was to free specific intelligence agents whose knowledge was vital to the upcoming invasion. Others maintain the humanitarian mission was genuine. The French Resistance members who escaped generally expressed gratitude, though some questioned whether the operation was worth the lives lost in the bombing.